US Federal Law & Regulation API
Pricing
Pay per usage
US Federal Law & Regulation API
Search 4 federal legal databases — eCFR titles, Federal Register documents, GovInfo legal collections, and Federal Court Opinions (CourtListener) — via the SIP Public Data Gateway.
Pricing
Pay per usage
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kane liu
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US Federal Law & Regulation Search
Search the Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, GovInfo, and federal court opinions in one query — no Westlaw subscription needed.
- ✅ Search 4 federal legal databases simultaneously — CFR, Federal Register, GovInfo, CourtListener
- ✅ Get regulation text, proposed rules, court opinions, and legislative documents
- ✅ Toggle sources on/off — search just what you need
- ✅ Pay only for what you use: $0.002 per legal record
- ✅ Free $5 Apify credit on signup = ~2,500 records to start with
Westlaw charges $69–194/user/month for small firms. Bloomberg Law runs ~$450/user/month. Meanwhile, the eCFR, Federal Register, GovInfo, and CourtListener are all free government databases — just spread across 4 different websites with 4 different APIs. This Actor searches all of them at once and returns everything in one downloadable table.
What you can do with it
1. Find every federal regulation on a topic
Search the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations for the current regulatory text on any topic. The eCFR contains all 50 CFR titles — the complete body of federal regulations, continuously updated.
What you enter:
| What | Example |
|---|---|
| Search term | data privacy or clean water act or workplace safety |
| Sources | eCFR regulations (on by default) |
What you get back:
| Title | CFR Title # | Status | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title 45 — Public Welfare (Privacy) | 45 | Current | 2026-04-10 |
| Title 16 — Commercial Practices (FTC) | 16 | Current | 2026-04-10 |
| Title 29 — Labor (OSHA) | 29 | Current | 2026-04-10 |
Each result links to the exact regulation text. For compliance officers, this replaces manually browsing ecfr.gov and figuring out which of the 50 titles is relevant.
2. Track new rulemaking and proposed regulations
The Federal Register published 106,109 pages in 2024 — a record high. New proposed rules, final rules, notices, and executive orders are published daily. Search for your industry keyword to see what's coming.
What you enter:
| What | Example |
|---|---|
| Search term | artificial intelligence or cryptocurrency |
| Sources | Federal Register only |
What you get back:
| Title | Type | Agency | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Risk Management Framework | Rule | NIST/Commerce | 2025-08-15 |
| Request for Comment on AI in Federal Procurement | Notice | OMB | 2025-11-02 |
| Executive Order on Safe AI Development | Presidential Document | White House | 2025-10-30 |
For compliance officers and government affairs teams, this is how you track regulatory changes before they become law. Run it weekly on a schedule and you'll never miss a proposed rule in your area.
3. Search 9 million federal court opinions
CourtListener contains over 9 million legal decisions from 2,000+ federal and state courts — over 99% of US precedential case law. Search by topic, party name, or legal concept to find relevant opinions.
What you enter:
| What | Example |
|---|---|
| Search term | patent infringement or employment discrimination |
| Sources | Federal court opinions only |
What you get back:
Court opinions with case name, court, date, and citation — ready for legal research, litigation prep, or policy analysis.
4. Map the full regulatory landscape on a topic
Search all 4 sources at once to get the complete picture: which CFR titles govern a topic, what new rules are being proposed, what legislative documents exist, and what courts have ruled. One search, four databases, one table.
What you enter:
| What | Example |
|---|---|
| Search term | environmental protection or financial disclosure |
| Sources | All 4 (default) |
What you get back:
| Source | Result | Type |
|---|---|---|
| eCFR | Title 40 — Protection of Environment | CFR Title |
| Federal Register | Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science | Rule |
| GovInfo | Clean Air Act Amendments collection | Legislative document |
| CourtListener | EPA v. State of West Virginia | Court opinion |
This is the kind of cross-source research that takes hours of manual work across 4 different government websites — or costs $194+/month for a Westlaw subscription. Here it costs a few cents.
5. Use it from ChatGPT, Claude, or no-code automation
Ask your AI assistant "what federal regulations exist for drone operations?" — it runs this Actor and returns the actual CFR titles, Federal Register rules, and court opinions. Also works as a step in Make, n8n, and Zapier.
How to use (no code required)
- Click "Try for Free" at the top of this page
- Type a legal topic, keyword, or citation (e.g.
clean air act,HIPAA,Section 230) - Toggle which sources you want: eCFR regulations, Federal Register, GovInfo, or Court Opinions
- Click Start — results appear in the Dataset tab within seconds, ready to download as Excel, CSV, or JSON
All sources are queried in parallel — a full 4-source search completes in 2–5 seconds. No login, no API key setup required.
The $5 free Apify credit covers ~2,500 legal records.
What you get back
Each legal record comes back as one row. Fields vary by source:
- eCFR: CFR title number, title name, status (current/historical), last updated date
- Federal Register: document number, title, type (rule/notice/presidential document), agency, publication date, abstract, source URL
- GovInfo: collection name, package type, congress/session, document category
- CourtListener: case name, court, date filed, citation, opinion text
Every row includes metadata: _source, _product_id, _search_term, and _collected_at.
Data sources
All 4 sources are official US federal legal databases, freely published by the government:
| Source | What it covers | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| eCFR | Code of Federal Regulations — all current federal regulations | 50 titles, continuously updated |
| Federal Register | Daily publication of rules, notices, executive orders | 106,109 pages published in 2024 (record high) |
| GovInfo | Congressional bills, statutes, CFR annual editions | Bills from 2003 to present |
| CourtListener | Federal and state court opinions | 9 million+ opinions from 2,000+ courts |
The US legal tech market is valued at $7.3–11.2 billion (2024). Most of that spending goes to Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Law for access to the same underlying government data that this Actor searches for free.
Pricing
Pay per record. No subscription.
| What triggers a charge | Cost |
|---|---|
| Actor start (each run) | $0.005 |
| Each legal record | $0.002 |
Real-world cost examples:
| Scenario | Records | Total cost |
|---|---|---|
| Quick CFR lookup on one topic | 20 | $0.045 |
| Full 4-source regulatory landscape search | 200 | $0.405 |
| Weekly Federal Register monitoring | 100 | $0.205 |
$5 free Apify credit = ~2,500 records.
How this compares to the alternatives:
| Tool | Price | What you get | What you don't get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Westlaw | $69–194/user/mo (small firms) | Full legal research platform, annotations, citator | Pay-per-use, non-lawyers |
| Bloomberg Law | ~$450/user/mo | Flat-fee all-inclusive legal research | Any form of pay-per-search |
| LexisNexis | Custom pricing | Deep legal and business intelligence | Transparent pricing |
| eCFR/FedReg/GovInfo (direct) | Free | Raw data from each government API | Unified search — 4 APIs, 4 schemas, 4 sets of docs |
| This Actor | $0.005/run + $0.002/record | 4 sources combined, parallel search, pay-per-use | — |
Connect to your tools
| Platform | How to connect |
|---|---|
| Make.com | Search "Apify" → "Run Actor" → Actor ID lentic_clockss/us-federal-law-search |
| n8n | Add Apify node → "Run Actor" → same Actor ID |
| Zapier | Apify integration → "Run Actor" trigger |
| ChatGPT / Claude / Cursor | Connect via Apify's MCP endpoint |
| LangChain, Python, custom code | Via Apify SDK or direct API call |
When to use something else
| If you need... | Use this instead |
|---|---|
| Full legal research with annotations and citators | Westlaw or LexisNexis — they add editorial value on top of raw law |
| State-level statutes and codes | State-specific legal databases or Westlaw/LexisNexis |
| International law and treaties | Specialized international law databases |
| Regulatory compliance screening (EPA, OFAC, FDIC) | US Compliance Search |
| Business entity registrations | US Business Entity Search |
FAQ
Q: Where does this data come from? A: All 4 sources are official US federal databases: eCFR (Government Publishing Office), Federal Register (Office of the Federal Register), GovInfo (GPO), and CourtListener (Free Law Project nonprofit with 99%+ coverage of US precedential case law).
Q: Is this a replacement for Westlaw or LexisNexis? A: For raw regulation text, rulemaking documents, and court opinions — yes, this gives you the same underlying data. Westlaw and LexisNexis add editorial annotations, citator tools (KeyCite/Shepard's), and practice-area analysis on top. If you need the raw data and not the editorial layer, this Actor costs pennies vs hundreds per month.
Q: How fast is a search? A: All enabled sources are queried in parallel. A full 4-source search completes in 2–5 seconds.
Q: How fresh is the data? A: The eCFR is continuously updated. The Federal Register publishes daily. CourtListener is updated continuously from court PACER feeds. GovInfo updates vary by collection.
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→ Browse all Actors: apify.com/lentic_clockss
Also Available
- Direct API:
https://opendata.best/api/v1/data— use with any HTTP client and your API key - Postman Collection: Fork and test — pre-built requests with example responses
- GitHub: Collection source files — import JSON into any API client
